What has Gone wrong with Today’s Youth? [Archives:2005/884/Education]
ABDU TALIB
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
TAIZ UNIVERSITY
Most people would agree that the youth are the real wealth of a country and the pillars of strength and power. They are the potential shapers of tomorrow. However, in our society, things tend to go in the opposite direction. A large segment of our youth have become prone to many types of rougish behaviour. These shameful behaviours smear the foundaton of our deep-rooted values and beliefs .
In many countries responsible parents make sure that their children are provided with as much learning and culture as possible: to open the minds of the youth, to raise their sense of awareness and to imbibe in these future leaders a sense of principles and values. We on the other hand, provide our children with both the means and desire to kill or be killed. We allow our youth to grow up ingnorant, conceited and reckless. We equip our future strength with the tools of failure while telling them they can have whatever they want. We must remember that pride goes before fall. Yet, many parents are proud that their sons wear a pistol on their right hip, a pager on the left and a mobile strung around the neck! All they need is a lolly pop stuck in their mouth to make the picture complete. Our shapers of tomorrow are full of sound and fury but signify in reality, nothing of any lasting value. Simple statistics and obvious facts bear witness to these truths. Far too many murders and accidents occur at the hands of our youth. Weapons and cars in the hands of adolescents constitute a danger to our society as a whole, while ignoring any real moral or ethical training or our youth guarantees another generation of hopelessness.
The deteriorating condition of today's youth apparently can be noticed in their daily activities and pastimes. Streets can be seen teeming with guys of different ages, slouching around from one place to another until the cows come back home. These undisciplined groups of youth seem to have nothing better to do than to sit around, wasting time, troubling pasers by, harrassing girls and just generally indulging in trivial matter. Others sit for long hours watching base TV channels or pursuing sex sites on computers in the internet cafes. Add to these the costly and time wasting habits of qat chewing and smoking. Are these the type of youth we are training who will one day be responsible to lead the ambitions of our counry and push the wheel of progress and development? I don't believe they will.
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